Troublemaker Read online

  She raced over and began dancing around Bo in an excess of joy. Bo knelt and indulged in a frenzy of petting, but she barely knew what she was doing. She felt as if she’d been hit between the eyes with a two-by-four, or maybe punched in the stomach. Something. Even her lips were numb.

  No. Oh dear God, no.

  CHAPTER 13

  SHE DIDN’T WANT TO BE ATTRACTED TO HIM. SHE shouldn’t, couldn’t, be attracted to him. There was no point in it, it was stupid, it was a total waste of time and emotional effort. She knew better.

  Yet here she was, almost melting because he was snuggling with her dog. Well, not that exactly; Tricks had a way of making everyone eat out of her paw. It was him, specifically. She wasn’t wearing rose-colored glasses when it came to seeing him for what he was. For the most part he had kept himself very low key, and she appreciated the effort he’d made, but she hadn’t forgotten that he was here because he lived a very dangerous life, one so different from hers she couldn’t begin to relate. He was also a temporary fixture; when he was well, he’d be gone. He wouldn’t stay.

  She’d never before been attracted to overt masculinity, the kick-ass-and-take-names mentality. So why him? Her ex-husband had been better looking; feckless, but better looking. Morgan’s features were rough, carved by hard experience. A woman would never look at him and think “Pretty!” but she would definitely look at him and think “Man.” Maybe that was it; maybe it was a chemical reaction, and she was responding to all that testosterone.

  Her heart was pounding way too fast, perhaps in panic. She’d been aware of him from the beginning, and it had been easy to delude herself into thinking it was nothing more than his unaccustomed presence in her home making her on edge. She had tamped that awareness down, controlled it, rationalized it. What she hadn’t been able to do was destroy it. The awareness had waited, ticking away like a time bomb; perhaps she’d let herself get too comfortable because the bomb had just exploded in her face and she didn’t know what to do, how to handle it.

  He’d changed. If he’d stayed the way he was, she’d be okay because she’d be in caretaker mode. He’d arrived a physical wreck, but now he wasn’t. He’d been here just a little over a week, and though she saw him every day, she was still aware that his color was better, he was stronger, he was gaining weight. Without knowing for certain, she guessed that when she was gone he worked at building his stamina because she couldn’t imagine a man who did what he did for a living being content to simply wait and let his body heal on its own. No, he’d be pushing himself beyond what an ordinary person would, fighting back against weakness, which was further evidence of who and what he was.

  He was far from recovered, but in that one week he’d improved enough that he could manage by himself. In the name of self-preservation she should insist that he leave. Doing so would undoubtedly cost her what Axel had already put in her bank account, but she hadn’t spent any of it so she wouldn’t be any worse off than she had been before. It wasn’t as if she’d be destitute; she was okay financially.

  But where would Morgan go? He couldn’t go home. He’d have to contact Axel, get some other arrangements made, and on that first day he’d made it plain any further contact could paint a target on his back. He had some money, he had credit cards, he was undoubtedly capable. She could tell him to go.

  But what kind of person would that make her, if she put her emotions above his life? This wasn’t a game he was playing. He’d already almost died. Axel had said he’d coded twice during surgery.

  She would be endangering his life if she made him go.

  She would be endangering her heart if she didn’t.

  All of those thoughts and realizations were racing through her mind like strobe flashes. The inner turmoil of realization was so great that she felt the blood draining from her face, literally felt her flesh contracting. Morgan must have seen it because he started to his feet, caught himself and winced in pain, then forced himself upright. He moved fast, was beside her in three long strides. “What’s wrong?” he asked, cupping her elbows in his rough palms to catch her if she staggered.

  Bo fought down her reaction, conquered it, regained her mental balance. No way would she let him guess what she was thinking. She had too strong an instinct for self-preservation for that. She blew out a breath. “I just got woozy. Low blood sugar, I guess; I didn’t stop to get anything to eat.”

  He was frowning with concern. “Sit down, and I’ll get you something. What do you want? A sandwich?”

  “Just a yogurt. It’s too close to dinner to eat a sandwich.” Dinner wasn’t the only thing that was too close; he was too close, too warm, too big. She didn’t want to notice that the top of her head didn’t reach his chin, or how broad his shoulders were. She didn’t want to see the faint line of a small scar on his jaw, or smell the hot man-scent of his skin. He was still holding her elbows, and she liked the feel of his hands on her skin, the heat of them. Oh, damn, this was bad. He needed to release her. She needed to move away.

  Thank God, he let her go and went to the refrigerator to fetch the requested yogurt and a spoon. Bo went to the bar and eased onto one of the stools. She was shaking, both inside and out. He couldn’t know. He could never know. She had to suck it up, hide her feelings—no, she had to ignore those feelings, box them up and seal it tight, until even she couldn’t tell they were there.

  He opened the yogurt container for her before he placed it in front of her, the piercing blue fire of his gaze searching her face. Keeping her expression bland, she said, “Thanks,” and put a spoonful in her mouth. Never before had she been so grateful to have something so ordinary to do.

  “I’ve never got what it is women like about yogurt,” he commented, leaning his hip against the counter on the other side of the bar. He was still thin, but he had the easy grace of an athlete, someone who had trained his body far beyond the capabilities of most humans. What was he like when he was at full strength?

  Don’t think about it, don’t think about it. She wrenched her thoughts from that path and made herself shrug. “The texture is creamy. It’s easy, nothing that has to be prepared. When you don’t want a lot, it’s just enough.”

  “The same can be said for peanut butter.”

  “Do you like beef jerky?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So what’s appealing about gnawing on something with the texture of leather?”

  He grinned, his ice-blue eyes crinkling at the corners. “When you finish, you feel like you’ve accomplished something. Why didn’t you stop to eat? Worried about Tricks?”

  She scoffed, rolled her eyes. “I knew Tricks would be fine. I was worried about you. I just could see you doing something when you were outside that pissed her off, then she’d get all huffy and not come back inside, and you’d hurt yourself trying to catch her.”

  He laughed as he looked at the dog, who was lying on her back with all four feet in the air while she enthusiastically chewed on the bedraggled one-legged giraffe. “Yeah, she’s a terror.” He rubbed the side of his nose, his expression suddenly a little abashed. “You were right. For a dog, she’s damn brilliant.”

  “I know,” she said smugly. “I’ve been dealing with her for two and a half years now.” Tricks’s intelligence wasn’t due to anything Bo personally had done, but she was still proud of the dog. She paused, and curiosity got the best of her. “What did she do?”

  “I was trying to do too much and got a muscle spasm in my back. She wanted to go outside, and I couldn’t bend down to pick up her ball so I told her she’d have to put it in my hand. She did.” He slowly shook his head in amazement. “Every time. How did she understand that?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is, she does. If she could talk and had opposable thumbs, she’d rule the world.” She finished the yogurt, slid off the stool to put the carton in the trash and the spoon in the dishwasher. “How’s your back now?”

  He turned to face her, lounged against the counter again. “Better. I borrowed her